Information
by Thom
Summary: Hagrid lets muggles into Hogwarts. Not really like it sounds. Sorta surreal.
1. King's Cross

"No."  
  
"Excuse me, I need to get onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. It is of the utmost importance."  
  
I sighed. "No. There is no such thing. Look."  
  
The man's face grew red. "I don't know where it is either. But I NEED TO GET THERE!"  
  
I stepped around the information counter, slapping a "Back in Five Minutes" sign down with what I realize now was unnesscessary force. "Look sir," I said, "I'll show you."  
  
He followed me, breathing heavily, over to Platform Nine. I slowly walked to the middle of the barrier between the platforms. First I shoved it with my hand, then leaned all my weight into it. I vaulted over it and back. "Nothing there sir. Go away."  
  
His breathing rate increased. His eyes, red from lack of sleep, bulged. His whole rather disgusting body quivered. "I see." He said.  
  
A line had formed at the desk and I hurried back over to it. In the pauses between lost tourists and angry buisnessmen I could see the man glowering at the barrier between the platforms. He even struck it with his fist once. I looked up again and didn't see him, and he was soon forgotten.  
  
Until, thirty seconds later, the face of the woman infront of me, who had been asking about last week's departure times, suddenly paled. Before I could react, huge beefy arms slipped under mine, and I was lifted bodily into the air and pressed against what could only have been the stomach of that horrid, disgusting, and, it now seemed, crazy man who had been inquiring of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.  
  
"Put me down."  
  
He grunted and began running.  
  
"Put me down."  
  
He ran faster, and the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten loomed before me.  
  
I kicked with my right foot, and the heel hit the side of his leg. I tried again, and his grunt of pain was the last thing I heard in the world of ordinary men.  
  
The barrier suddenly flickered out. A scarlet steam engine running on tracks I knew from years of memorization could not exist was the background for a most unlikely scene. A semicircle of men and women, dressed in black and purple, and all wearing pointed hats that I found oddly comforting, stood gaping at us. By us I mean me and the awful man, but mostly the man. The only part of me visible to the crowd was a bit of my head, as the rest was covered up by the man, who had tripped on an expected something that had turned to nothing, and fallen on me. A steady stream of blood dripped down frowm his forhead, obscuring my view of the person in the center of the semicircle. Breathing was difficult, until he rolled off of me. He lay there limp while I bled from several places. The drip was gone, though, so I could see a man rather taller than the rest, and bigger, and hairier. He wore no hat, but he held a pink umbrella pointed directly over me, at the barrier or something beyond. He looked very worried.  
  
*^ 


	2. Hogwarts

The rumbling of a train wove dizzily in and out of my consciousness. Sometimes the noise was alone, sometimes pain accompanied it. Sometimes the pain was alone, and sometimes there was nothing. Only one image from this time, this train ride I suppose, remains with me. I don't know if I opened my eyes more than once, but if I did I have no recollection of doing so.  
  
A sound of water. I asked where we were going. Someone said "Igwsrtsr" or something. Most likely my senses were functioning inadequately. After a while the water stopped and I was carried, though I felt nothing touch me. During this time (of levitation? Of numbness?) it occurred to me that I hadn't eaten lunch. My senses also cleared a little, and I could make out voices.  
  
"Hagrid's let muggles in. They're hurt."  
  
"I can see that!"  
  
"Well…"  
  
"Get them up to the infirmary at once! They're here now, and the only thing to do is fix the up and get them out. We at Hogwarts don't make a point of being perfect beasts!"  
  
"Yes ma'am."  
  
I opened my eyes briefly and was blinded by a sun that seemed to be on the ceiling.  
  
"Well get them up there! How many times must I tell you?"  
  
"Yes ma'am. Let's go, Hagrid."  
  
There was a sniffle.  
  
*^ 


	3. Infirmary

I opened my eyes. I felt exhausted. Strange paraphernalia decorated the walls, ceiling, and tables of the room in which I lay. No one in the room besides me was awake. Only one other person in the room was alive, the repulsive man from the train station. None in the room, unless I was, were dead. The man snored. There was no scar on his forehead.  
  
All of the places that I had felt pain were free of any injury. Some of the items in the room looked like medical apparatus. They looked, to be more precise, like medical apparatus that had been crossbred with all manner of more often than not extremely disturbing things. However, though I found them disturbing, I felt that they were less disturbing than anything else about my life before (fortunate? Unfortunate?) chance had brought that man to my information desk at King's Cross Station. I was not used to these things, or this place, but they seemed more real, more important, better than anything I had ever experienced, I felt elated, I felt good and free. I felt like my lifelong goal of – but I shall not tell you my lifelong goal. Not just yet.  
  
I sat up and a purple cushion, no more than three inches in diameter, fell from my neck onto my lap. I picked it up and it rattled. I liked it, so I put it in my pocket. There was one on the awful man's neck too. I left it there.  
  
I stood and walked out of the door. I went back in and found among the clutter of a low table a very long, nearly invisible needle. Nearly invisible because of its width, which could not have exceeded one ten thousandth of an inch. I picked it up and pricked my skin. Blood appeared.  
  
I placed the purple cushion on my neck, and instantly the cut disappeared. The blood was gone. I still felt exhausted. The deductions were obvious, and helpful. I hunted until I found something blunt (I can't describe it, all I remember was its bluntness and that there were three of something on it.). I hit the still sleeping man with the object. A bruise appeared on his head, and began to fade at once. Such a wonderful thing, that purple cushion. It removed physical wounds and pain, but shock, unconsciousness, and fatigue remained.  
  
Would you have thought of this? No. Because it directly pertains to my lifelong goal, which was to be a detective.  
  
That's why I took the job at the information desk. I dealt in information. Even if it was the most diluted, harmless form of information trade, still it was, and what else is the detective but the ultimate information trader? He does not buy, sell or give information, but he collects it and uses it. Use-a word with little relevance to my former life. Give information, get money, buy food. Good enough, but nothing in this schedule is really used except to further the cycle. The detective though – the detective uses the information he collects for two reasons. One merely furthers the cycle: he uses information to solve a case to make money to buy food. The second however, has nothing to do with his job. He collects information because he enjoys seeing all the little bits make sense.  
  
You would think that this would make the detective someone who likes only sensible things, things that are logical and well founded. This is false. Instead, it bestows upon the detective a desire to gather the most bizarre information the world can throw at him, so that he can prove himself better than nature, smarter than the universe itself.  
  
Which is why, of course, I enjoyed the world I found myself in so much. Everything in it went against all of my conditioning, all of my experience. Here it was, unless I was dead or delusional, and I was going to make sense of it. And I didn't want that revolting man, who I suspected was highly against all things irrational, disturbing my work. So I hit him on the head with the blunt object again.  
  
*^ 


End file.
